Malcolm Adiseshiah Award 2014

May 14th, 2014

Below is an extract from my letter of acceptance of the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award.

Even as I am honoured to accept the Malcolm Adiseshiah Award for Distinguished Contribution to Development Studies for the year 2014, I am made aware of the additional responsibility this places upon me in what remains of my professional life. I view this award as a recognition of the role of evidence-based research in economics not only in making sense of our social world but also in our effort to improve it. I believe that my profession is indebted to the Malcolm and Elizabeth Adiseshiah Trust for supporting these objectives unconditionally.

I use this opportunity to acknowledge with gratitude the contribution of the many co-authors, co-workers and students who have collaborated with me in an effort to advance our understanding of the working of India’s economy which has been the focus of my research. But above all, I thank the people of the city of Chennai where I received my early education at the Madras Christian College in the nineteen seventies, which endowed me with such capabilities as I possess. Finally, I would like to record my appreciation to the Centre for Development Studies at Thiruvananthapuram and the Indian Statistical Institute at Delhi, public institutions that have supported my research over the past two and a half decades.